SMI/ICTM-IE Annual Postgraduate Conference

Maynooth University, 19 and 20 January 2018

Provisional Programme

Kindly supported by Maynooth University Conference & Workshop Support Fund,

Maynooth University Graduate Studies Office, and the Contemporary Music Centre

Friday 19 January 2018

8h30 – 9h00: Registration (Music Department)

9h00 – 9h15: Introductory Address (Bewerunge Room)

by Christopher Morris, (Professor of Music, Maynooth University), Head of Music Department

9h15 – 10h45

Session 1

(Bewerunge Room)

CHMHE Undergraduate

Musicology Competition

Session

Chair: Professor

Christopher Morris

(Maynooth University)

Session 2

(O’Callaghan Room)

Popular Music(s) 1

Chair: Dr Jaime Jones

(University College Dublin)

Session 3

(New Music Room)

18th Century Music

Chair: Dr Michael Lee

(Trinity College Dublin)

James McGlynn

(University College Cork)

Scoring Realities: Sonically

Conveying Narrative,

Temporality and

Characterisation in HBO’s

Westworld (2016)

Stephanie Caffrey

(Dundalk Institute of

Technology)

Creating a Signature Sound:

Blending Celtic Roots and

Aesthetics with Popular

Music Production in Albums

Recorded by the Corrs

Ciara Conway (Queen’s

University, Belfast)

John O’Keeffe and the South

Seas: Omai; or, a Trip round

the World (1783)

Ellie McGinley (Dundalk

Institute of Technology)

From the Periphery to the

Forefront: An Investigation

of the Processes of Revival

in the Donegal Fiddle

Tradition

David Sleator (BIMM

Dublin)

The Music of Die Antwoord

as a Manifestation of

Fractured and Subverted

Local Identities Responding

to Increasing Globalization

Federico Funari

(University of Sheffield)

New Sources for Giovanni

Battista Serini’s Biography

Marie Edmonds (Mary

Immaculate College)

The Significance of

Traditional Music to the

Ewe Community of South-

Eastern Ghana

Mark Cronin (Institute of

Education, University

College London)

The Learning Lives of

Professionals in the Popular

Music World with No

Formal Training

Bridget Knowles (CIT

Cork School of Music)

The Tessitura of the

Contralto Voice in Handel’s

Operas: A Quantitative

Analysis and the Implications

for Modern Performance

Practice

10h45 – 11h15: Tea and coffee break (Music Department, Logic House)

11h15 – 13h15

Session 4

(Bewerunge Room)

The 19th Century

Chair: Mr. Bryan Whitelaw

(Queens University Belfast)

Session 5

(O’Callaghan Room)

Popular Music(s) 2

Chair: Dr Jaime Jones (University

College Dublin)

Session 6

(New Music Room)

Reception, Representation

and Narrative

Chair: Dr Éamonn Costello

(Irish World Academy of

Music and Dance, University

of Limerick)

Luodmila Podlesnykh

(DIT Conservatory of

Music and Drama)

The Impact of John Field on

Alexander Dubuque’s

Technique of Piano Playing

Fardo Ine Eringa (University of

Groningen)

Performing Michael Jackson to

Make the World a Better Place: The

Ardent Dedication of Michael

Jackson Pilgrims and the Divine

Mission of the Major Love Prayer

John Millar (University

College Dublin)

Country at the Fringes

Faez I. Abdalla Abarca

(University of Arizona)

Chromatic Evolution: V-of-

iii as a Dominant Substitute

in Felix Mendelssohn’s

Songs without Words

Emma Stapleton (Goldsmith’s

College, University of London)

Nick Cave's Dark Romanticism: An

Analysis of Gothic Style and

Freudian Themes

Felix Morgenstern (Irish

World Academy of Music

and Dance, University of

Limerick)

‘The Freer, Wilder, and

Unpoliciter the Folk, the More

Lyrical its Songs have to be!’ –

Herder’s Romanticising of the

Celtic European Fringe: A

Recurring Narrative of

German-Irish Musical

Affinities?

Nicolás Puyané

(Maynooth University)

Parallel Lines: Liszt's ossia

to ‘Im Rhein, im schonen

Strome’

Michael Lydon (National

University of Ireland, Galway)

Noisy Island?: Irish Popular Music

in the Digital Age and the

Demystification of Noise

Malachy Egan (National

University of Ireland,

Galway)

Quantifying Success: Seán Ó

Riada, Ceoltóirí Cualann and

the Challenge of Reception

History

Snezhina Gulubova (Royal

Holloway University of London)

From Revolution to Evolution:

Havana's New Music Scene

Maria Byrne (Maynooth

University)

The Irish Constabulary Band:

A Musical Authority in

Nineteenth-Century Ireland

(1861-1872)

13h15 – 14h30: Lunch (Pugin Hall, St. Patrick’s College, South Campus)

14h30 – 14h40: ICTM Ireland Chair’s Address (Bewerunge Room)

by Lonán Ó Briain (Assistant Professor of Music, University of Nottingham), Chair of the

International Council for Traditional Music, Ireland

14h40 – 15h15: Digital Research and Resources Special Information Session (Bewerunge

Room)

Chair: Dr Lonán Ó Briain

Guest Speakers: Dr Lynnsey Weissenberger (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, ITMA) and

Treasa Harkin (Governance & Images Officer, ITMA)

Title: The Irish Traditional Music Archive: LITMUS Project and Research Resources

15h15 – 16h45

Session 7

(Bewerunge Room)

English Language Vocal

Music

Chair: Dr Michael Lee

(Trinity College Dublin)

Session 8

(O’Callaghan Room)

20th Century Music:

Analytical Perspectives

Chair: Dr Martin O’Leary

(Maynooth University)

Session 9

(New Music Room)

Cross-Cultural Perspectives

in Irish Music

Chair: Dr John O’Keeffe

(Maynooth University)

Cathal Twomey (Maynooth

University)

‘Suit your Words to your

Music Well’: A Schematic

Approach to English Baroque

Word-Setting

Claire Wilson (Ulster

University)

A Diffusion of Regularity:

Metric Ambiguity in André

Caplet's Mélodie

Rosemary Heredos (Irish

World Academy of Music

and Dance, University of

Limerick)

Vox Virginis: Marian Imagery

of the Crucifixion in the Vocal

Music of Roman Catholic,

Greek Orthodox, and Irish

Sean-Nós Traditions

Owen Gilhooly (Royal Irish

Academy of Music)

Georgina Hughes

(University College

Dublin)

Eleanor Jones McAuley

(Trinity College, Dublin)

The Vocal Music of Thomas

Roseingrave

The Changing Status of

Percussion in the Twentieth

Century

‘Will sure the Pretend’r and

Popery bring in’: Italian Music,

Anti-Catholicism, and the

Church in Eighteenth-Century

Ireland

Sarah Ledwidge (Trinity

College Dublin)

'Little Eyases': The

Adolescent Male Voice on

the Shakespearean Stage

Varazdat Khachatryan

(DIT Conservatory of

Music and Drama)

Structural Development of

Rachmaninoff’s Piano

Concertos No. 1, 2, 3

Eamonn Galldubh (Dundalk

Institute of Technology)

'Jigg to the Irish Cry’ -

Exploring Thumoth’s Irish

Airs (1746-1748)

16h45 – 17h15: Tea and coffee break (Music Department, Logic House)

17h15 – 19h15

Session 10

(O’Callaghan Room)

Music and Gender

Chair: Dr Jaime Jones (University College

Dublin)

Session 11

(New Music Room)

Theory in Context

Chair: Dr Danielle Sofer (Maynooth

University)

Joanne Cusack (Maynooth University)

A Woman's Heart: Challenging Gender Roles

in Irish Traditional Music, and the

Diversification of the (Masculine) Button

Accordion

Nadine Scharfetter (University of Music

and Performing Arts, Graz)

Dieter Schnebel’s Experimental Music and its

Pedagogical Approach

Kirstie Alison Muldoon (Maynooth

University)

The Role of Women in Irish Music

Institutions: Dublin 1879 – 1924

Laura Vattano (University of Edinburgh)

The Conceptualisation of Musical Experience

in Luigi Russolo’s The Art of Noises

Francesca Stevens (University of

Groningen)

The Women of Doom: An Ethnographic

Study of Women’s Experience in Doom

Metal

Nicholas Cooper (University College

Dublin)

Hanslick, Kant, and Wittgenstein: Re-

Evaluating Formalism

Martina Bratic (University of Graz,

Austria)

On Female Music, or ‘How ‘Feminist’ Really

Works in Feminist Musicology’

19h45: Conference dinner: Red Torch Ginger Restaurant, Main Street, Maynooth

Saturday 20 January 2018

9h00 – 9h30: Registration (Music Department, Logic House, South Campus)

9h30 – 11h30

Session 12

(New Music Room)

Political and Theoretical

Discourses in Music

Chair: Dr Francesca Placanica

(Maynooth University)

Session 13

(Bewerunge Room)

Performance and

Composition as Research

Chair: Dr Ryan Molloy

(Maynooth University)

Session 14

(O’Callaghan

Room)

Jazz

Chair: Dr Laura Watson

(Maynooth University)

Michael Whitten (Queen’s

University, Belfast)

Respect, Esteem, and

Distinction: The Recognitive

Foundations of Musical

Disagreement

Alex Petcu-Colan (Royal

Irish Academy of Music)

Beyond the Standard

Tuning of Bell Plates

Scott Flanigan (Ulster

University)

‘I’ll Be Seeing You’: Rhythmic

Exploration and Harmonic

Freedom in the Vocabulary of

Aaron Pa

Alan Taylor (Royal Central

School of Speech and

Drama)

A Psychological Theory of

Narrative and Drama in Music

Alan Barclay (Queen’s

University, Belfast)

Cantillation in The Long

Nights Dawn

Darach O Laoire (DIT

Conservatory of Music and

Drama)

Django Reinhardt, Charlie

Christian, and the Octatonic Scale

Emma-Jayne Reekie

(Institute of Popular Music

Studies, University of

Liverpool)

‘The Times They Are A-

Changin’: Politicians,

Musicians, and the Political

Award

Clair Butler (University

College Cork)

Western Choral

Arrangements for Javanese

Gamelan

Jimmy Brennan (DIT

Conservatory of Music and

Drama)

A Demonstration of George Van

Eps’ Influence on Solo Jazz

Guitar Performance Practice

through the Comparative Analysis

of a Jazz Standard

Riccardo La Spina

(Universidad de La Rioja)

Opera and Coffee:

Contemporaneous Perspectives

on Madrid’s Café Concerts

under Fernando VII

Kevin Higgins (Independent

Scholar)

Unfinished Phrases and Double

Meaning in Ahmad Jamal's ‘At

the Pershing: But Not For Me’

11h30 – 12h00: Tea and coffee break (Music Department, Logic House)

12h00 – 13h30

SMI Careers Forum (Bewerunge Room)

Chair: Bláithín Duggan (Trinity College Dublin)

Guest Speakers: Orlaith Tunney (Careers Advisory Service, Trinity College Dublin), Dr

Patricia Flynn (Dublin City University), Kevin O’Brien (Music Generation), Dr John O’Flynn

(Dublin City University), Anaïs Verhulst (Resonant Centre for Musical Heritage, Belgium)

Title: Post-PhD: Career Opportunities In and Beyond the Academy

13h30 – 14h45: Lunch (Pugin Hall, St. Patrick’s College, South Campus)

14h45 – 16h15

Session 15

(New Music Room)

Music, Technology, and the

Digital Age

Chair: Dr Gordon Delap

(Maynooth University)

Session 16

(Bewerunge Room)

Developments in Irish Art

Music

Chair: Dr Majella Boland (Royal

Irish Academy of Music)

Session 17

(O’Callaghan Room)

Innovation and Tradition

Chair: Dr Adrian Scahill

(Maynooth University)

Eamon O’Doherty (DIT

Conservatory of Music and

Drama)

Saxify: Detecting Fraudulent

Music Recordings

Maxime Le Mée (Dublin City

University)

Voice of the Poet, Voice of the

People: Irony and Romanticizing

in Moore’s Irish Melodies

Kaylie Streit (University

College Cork)

Creativity with Tradition:

A Case Study of Two

Cellists and Innovation in

Irish Traditional Music

Gonzalo Parrilla Gallego

(Complutense University of

Madrid)

The Music and Animation Path

through The Legend of Zelda

Saga

Áine Mulvey (Dublin City

University)

Alfred Perceval Graves and his

Contribution to Irish Song

Literature

Mark Redmond (DIT

Conservatory of Music

and Drama)

The Uilleann Pipes:

Beyond Traditional

Practice

Martin Clancy (Trinity

College Dublin)

You Can Call Me Hal (Music

and Machine Learning)

David Scott (DIT

Conservatory of Music and

Drama)

Rediscovering Muirgheis: The

First Grand Opera in Irish

Brendan Lamb

(University of Tasmania)

Instrumental Change: The

Introduction of String

Instruments to Irish Music

During the Irish Folk

Music Revival (1960s and

1970s)

16h15 – 16h45: Tea and coffee break

16h45 – 16h55: SMI Presidential Address (Bewerunge Room)

by Lorraine Byrne Bodley DMUS, PHD, MRIA (Senior Lecturer, Maynooth University),

President of the Society of Musicology in Ireland

16h55 – 18h00: Keynote Address (Bewerunge Room)

Chair: Dr Lorraine Byrne Bodley

Guest Speaker: Amanda Bayley (Professor of Music, Bath Spa University)

Title: Creative and Interactive Processes in Cross-Cultural Collaborations

18h00 – 18h30: Presentation of the Alison Dunlop Graduate Prize (Bewerunge Room)

by Christopher Morris (Professor of Music, Maynooth University) and Yo Tomita (Professor of

Music, Queens University Belfast)

18h30 – 19h30: Wine reception sponsored by the Contemporary Music Centre

19h45: Music session at Brady’s Pub (food served until 9pm)

Abstracts

Session 1: 11th CHMHE Undergraduate Musicology Competition Session

Scoring Realities: Sonically Conveying Narrative, Temporality, and Characterisation in

HBO’s Westworld (2016)

James McGlynn (University College Cork)

In 2016, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s serialised reimagining of Michael Crichton’s Westworld

(1973) was not short of visual or stylistic innovation. However, I propose that Ramin Djawadi’s

original score, alongside his music’s symbiotic relationship with narrative, temporality and

character-formation, are among the greatest innovations of this revival. This paper is an

exploration of the uniquely nuanced, complex narrative functionalities that Djawadi’s markedly

intertextual score to Westworld serves throughout its ten-hour narrative.

Confounded Frontiers: By means of introduction to Djawadi’s idiosyncratic sonority for the

series, I will first explore how music contributes to defining the unique and arguably bizarre

locus that Westworld occupies between 19th Century Wild West fiction and 21st Century

dystopian fantasy, and how his rearrangements of modern rock music create a sense of

cohesiveness rather than convergence. I will demonstrate how this intertextual score informs our

perception of the central unreality of the show’s setting and, crucially, how it denotes the

burgeoning sentience of Westworld’s android cast.

Sonic Omnipresence: The second half of this paper discusses the sense of “sonic omnipresence”

that Djawadi’s score lends the character of Robert Ford, inventor of the series’ eponymous theme

park and its android “hosts”. Examining the very deliberate marriage of the piano and Dr Ford, I

propose we are prompted to continually recognise this character’s presence and that Djawadi’s

score (as well as the visual foregrounding and narrative significance of music in Westworld)

serves to perpetuate his presence, influence and his almost supernatural manipulation of the

reality he has created.

From the Periphery to the Forefront: An Investigation of the Processes of Revival in the

Donegal Fiddle Tradition

Ellie McGinley (Dundalk Institute of Technology)

The Donegal fiddle tradition is a recognised regional tradition within the musical landscape of

21st century Ireland. However, prior to 1980, the Donegal fiddle tradition was arguably

misrepresented on a national scale and often degraded due to its perceived “non-Irish”

influences. The stylistic traits identified through the analysis of highly personalised performers

led to contradictory conclusions which varied from scholar to scholar, as it did not reflect the full

scope of the county’s fiddle tradition. The concept of regions and regional styles in Irish

traditional music has been discussed continuously since its inception with more disagreements in

its definitions than potentially any other aspect of the tradition. The diversity among musicians

and the inability to definitively describe the Donegal fiddle tradition has been one of those many

disagreements.

While this paper does little to define the exact characteristics of the performance style of the

region, it hopes to illustrate the investigation into its revival from 1980 to the present and its

strengthening during this period through organisations, the media, scholarship and the

dissemination of recordings which have led to the development of a more rounded perception of

the tradition. This paper suggests that through the specific investigation of their impact, it may be

possible to identify catalysts which have had the greatest influence on the strength of the

tradition and its perception on a micro and macro scale.

The Significance of Traditional Music to the Ewe Community of South-Eastern Ghana

Marie Edmonds (Mary Immaculate College)

This paper discusses traditional music in South-Eastern Ghana by exploring its role in Ewe social

life. It aims to provide an account of the significance of traditional music to the communities of

Kopeyia and the broader Volta Region.

A brief literature review of academic writing on Ewe music is followed by an explanation of the

methods that I followed to carry out this research during my stay in Ghana. The role of dance-

drumming groups and music-making at both funerals and festivals is explored to discuss the how

traditional music is both made and used in daily life. Traditional Ewe music is then explored as a

repository of history, knowledge, and culture.

The Kopeyia school cultural troupe and brass band are highlighted to discuss the position of

traditional arts in the lives of the younger generations today. Also mentioned is the Dagbe Cultural

Institute and Arts Centre in Kopeyia and its role in teaching Ewe music, dance, song, and language.

Three key interviews with teachers of this centre help to provide further insight into music-making

in the Ewe community.

Taking these points into consideration, the paper then offers a glimpse into the significance of

traditional music to the Ewe community of Kopeyia and the broader Volta Region of Ghana.

Session 2: Popular Music(s) 1

Creating a Signature Sound: Blending Celtic Roots and Aesthetics with Popular Music

Production in Albums Recorded by the Corrs

Stephanie Caffrey (Dundalk Institute of Technology)

The Corrs are a popular music group from Dundalk, Co. Louth, who draw upon traditional Irish

music with folk, rock and pop genres to achieve global commercial success. While this blanket

signature sound is evident throughout their entire recording career, each of their studio albums

offer different musical flavours, interpretations and styles, exhibiting the band’s musical growth

and development.

This research project will critically analyse and evaluate the music production techniques

implemented on the Corrs’ first studio album Forgiven Not Forgotten. This analysis will involve

the reverse engineering of the five official singles released from the album to consider each of

the song’s attributes in terms of structure, melody, harmony, rhythm, arrangement,

instrumentation, lyrical content and mix production. The role of recording technology combined

with the impact of music producer David Foster, collaborative songwriters and guest musicians

on these recordings will also be critically considered.

Through a critical examination of their signature sound created through a multi-faceted

production process, this paper will consider the music of the Corrs in the context of the music

industry in Ireland at the time of their initial chart success.

The Music of Die Antwoord as a Manifestation of Fractured and Subverted Local

Identities Responding to Increasing Globalization

David Sleator (BIMM Dublin)

This study investigates rap-rave music trio Die Antwoord and their place in a modern, post-

apartheid South Africa. It analyses their creative output, which employs parodical, post-modern

elements, through various theoretical lenses. The effects on a culture, under capitalism’s

structures of power, is addressed with support from some Marxian concepts. On a macro-level,

the facets of globalization and neo-liberal policies are included. It is nigh-on impossible to

escape the effects of these forces, and Die Antwoord were no exception. The influence on their

creative output, as well as how they played to the tune of these forces through the viral and sleek

nature of their music videos, will be addressed.

The majority of the paper pursues the idea of identity, from multiple angles. It addresses race and

ethnic identities in recent and modern South Africa, also investigating how language and

tribalism shapes identity. Finally, a Lacanian-inspired approach to identity and self, with support

from examples of Freud, distils the essence of Die Antwoord’s creative vision. Though not to

everyone’s taste, the group have left a lasting impression on the music industry and culture.

Though they sometimes (or often) don’t take themselves seriously, when we do, it provides a

very intriguing insight into their world.

The Learning Lives of Professionals in the Popular Music World with No Formal Training

Mark Cronin (Institute of Education, University College London)

Many professional musicians in Ireland did not pursue music at school and subsequently have

not taken part in any formal music programmes. Many of these professionals are popular

musicians who either teach or work as performers or in other capacities within the entertainment

industry. Relatively little attention has been given to the broad and varied activities of those

engaged in this type of musical venture, which can be a rich and engrossing experience for the

participants involved. At present, no research exists focussing specifically on the sub-group of

professional musicians who have no experience of formal music education.

My paper presents findings from a qualitative study which explores the learning experiences,

attitudes, and values of professional popular musicians in the Irish city of Cork, who have taken

informal or non-formal routes. Data were collected through a survey of 100 such musicians, and

16 in-depth interviews, to provide detailed descriptions of the participants’ experiences. The

paper aims to address a central issue which is an application of a question investigated by Green

(2002), but in a different context and with a different subset of musicians. That is: How do these

musicians go about acquiring skills and knowledge? The paper illustrates some of the informal

learning practices that are available to these musicians allowing for the transmission of

knowledge and skills. These informal learning practices, it is argued, are intimately bound up

with the development of their identities.

Session 3: 18th-Century Music

John O’Keeffe and the South Seas: Omai; or, a Trip round the World (1783)

Ciara Conway (Queen’s University, Belfast)

Captain James Cook is best known for his exploration of the south seas and his death by

homicide in Hawaii in 1780. Cook made a total of three Pacific journeys; the first from 1768-

1771, the second from 1772-1775 and the third from 1776-1780. Well acquainted were the

British public with Cook’s journeys due to the publication of first-hand accounts. John

Hawkesworth’s An Account of a Voyage round the World (1773) was widely read and critiqued,

and sparked huge interest in the unknown cultures in Polynesia. In 1784 A Voyage to the Pacific

Ocean was published in three volumes; the first two volumes comprised Cook’s memoirs and the

third James King’s memoirs. Nicely timed and well received was John O’Keeffe and William

Shield’s new pantomime Omai; or, a Trip round the World in Covent Garden in December 1785.

The main plot focuses on real life Tahitian characters, that of Omai in particular, who

accompanied Captain Cook to London at the end of his second voyage. Innovations in

spectacular machinery and effects received universal praise from reviewers; so too did

authenticity across set, staging, and costume, which were based on the drawings of chief

illustrator John Webber aboard the final Cook voyage.

However, the same ethnographic legitimacy cannot be claimed in the music. Even though the

pantomime consists of the well-known commedia dell’arte characters, it strays from typical

pantomimic conventions which raises questions not only concerning characterisation but also its

allocation of borrowed music. This paper will place Omai in the context of musical

characterisation on the London stage in the late eighteenth century when the racialisation of the

south seas was taking hold.

New Sources for Giovanni Battista Serini’s Biography

Federico Funari (University of Sheffield)

Giovanni Battista Serini was an Italian harpsichordist and composer. Born in the North of Italy

(most likely in Cremona) ca. 1710, he spent his life between Italy (Venice) and Germany

(Bueckeburg and Bonn). My paper is based on the sources I (re)discovered in the Bueckeburg

archive and my aim is to review Serini’s biography according to this documentation.

The most important documents about Serini’s life are preserved in the Bueckeburg Archive. These

are primary sources related to the stay of Serini in that Court. Among those documents are

musician’s contracts, receipt of payments, letters addressed to Count Schaumburg-Lippe

(Bueckeburg Count) where Serini wrote about his future plans (in 1755 he left Bueckeburg to

Prague and then for Bonn). Bueckeburg preserves some lists of works written by Serini himself.

The Schauburg-Lippe court was a multicultural place with painters, poets, scientists and, of course,

musicians. The court was modelled on the Berlin court and as such, Italian taste was predominant.

In fact, with the exception of Bach’ son (also known as Bueckeburg Bach), all of the court

musicians were Italian. In this context, Serini can be seen as the court composer.

This is the first investigation of Giovanni Battista Serini, in terms of both his life and catalogue,

and it represents the first step toward the systematic study of musicians and musical life in the

Bueckeburg court in the middle of 18th Century.

The Tessitura of the Contralto Voice in Handel’s Operas: A Quantitative Analysis and the

Implications for Modern Performance Practice

Bridget Knowles (CIT Cork School of Music)

This paper details a quantities analysis of the tessitura used by Handel when writing operatic roles

for the contralto voice and considers the implications for the modern practice of having these roles

performed by the higher mezzo soprano. Tessitura can be defined as either the predominant pitch

area of a composition or the vocal register where a singer is most comfortable. Although the vocal

range of a contralto is similar to that of a mezzo-soprano, the tessitura and colour of each voice

will be different. Roles composed by Handel for the contralto tessitura may not have the same

effect when performed by a higher voice. This research mathematically quantifies the tessitura by

assigning a numeric value to the pitch and duration of each note, thus taking into account the

amount of time spent singing each pitch. The tessitura of each aria is assessed by reference to the

mean pitch, the mode, and the standard deviation.

Handel’s contraltos have been described as having voices of moderate range with a register

typically extending from b to e♭'', implying that Handel wrote in this limited range because his

singers were unable to extend beyond it. This paper will consider an alternative hypothesis:

Perhaps Handel deliberately composed in this register to exploit the lower tessitura and colour of

the contralto voice and the limited range is not a reflection of the singers’ lack of ability but more

a consequence of Handel’s compositional style for this voice type. This research will contribute

to current understanding of Handel’s contralto roles, providing a basis for informed artistic

decisions.

Session 4: The 19th Century

The Impact of John Field on Alexander Dubuque’s Technique of Piano Playing

Luodmila Podlesnykh (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)

John Field (1782-1837) is still widely recognised as the father of pianism in Russia, his adopted

home. In his own lifetime, devotees to his school were to be found all over Europe and his

revolutionary methods had a profound effect on the development of a distinct and tangible piano

school in Russia, which prevails to this day.

However, quantifying Field’s piano methods is not straightforward as he left behind no specific

technical exercises. His favourite and most devoted student, Alexander Dubuque (1812-1898)

did document Field’s pedagogical beliefs through his own method book: Technique of Piano

Playing which is deserving of careful analysis. Written in 1866, the Technique of Piano Playing

contains technical principles inherited from Field’s teaching methods and represents the pre-

romantic era of pianism in Russia. But, the exercises also form a bridge to the romantic period

and the pianistic art of virtuosi such as Thalberg, Liszt and Chopin.

This lecture recital aims to compare and contrast, as far as possible, Field’s studies with

Dubuque’s technical work, thereby exposing the most important facets of Field’s piano methods

and their influence on the future Russian school of piano playing. A modern edition of

Dubuque’s work was published in 2005 and has been translated and assessed by Luodmila

Podlesnykh.

Chromatic Evolution: V-of- iii as a Dominant Substitute in Felix Mendelssohn’s Songs

without Words

Faez I. Abdalla Abarca (University of Arizona)

In biological evolution, a living population evolves when it is exposed to the selection pressures

of a new biological medium. Analogously, in my chromatic evolution a chord “evolves” when it

is exposed to a new chromatic medium, forcing it to adapt and harmonically modify its pitch

content. This is a process by which a diatonic chord is progressively transformed into a

chromatic substitute, over a span of several similar works, without losing or modifying the

chord’s resolution tendencies, harmonic function, or formal location.

Felix Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words are ideal candidates for an “evolutionary” analysis.

Since the vast majority of these pieces share the same ternary form, it is possible to consider a

specific harmonic choice that consistently occurs in a precise location within the form: the pre-

recapitulatory harmony (i.e., the chord that precedes and prepares the return of main theme in

the recapitulation). A close assessment of this repertoire reveals that all of the early pieces (1829

to 1832) possess a root-position pre-recapitulatory dominant. However, in the late pieces (1845),

this option is replaced by a highly chromatic alternative: the dominant of the mediant.

From a Schenkerian perspective, I will demonstrate how this intriguing harmonic tendency can

be explained as a process of chromatic evolution, by which the late prominence of pre-

recapitulatory V-of-iii results from the harmonic transformation of the early root-position

dominant, mediated by a long middle period of harmonic exploration.

Parallel Lines: Liszt's ossia to ‘Im Rhein, im schonen Strome’

Nicolás Puyané (Maynooth University)

Franz Liszt's settings of the poems of Heinrich Heine are amongst his most celebrated

compositions in song form and according to Susan Youens are 'some of the best Heine songs of

the century'. Liszt set seven of Heine's poems, all of which exist in multiple published versions.

One of these settings, 'Im Rhein im schönen Strome' displays an almost unique variety of textual

fluidity amongst his Lieder, or indeed his wider compositional output. Not only does the song

exist in a heavily revised second version, but the first version was published with an extended

ossia in the piano part which runs for the entire duration of the song. This more elaborate piano

part in essence creates a 'parallel' version, that is radically different from the 'main' first version.

This paper examines all three versions of 'Im Rhein im schönen Strome', exploring Liszt's

non-traditional attitude to the musical work and the Werktreue ideal whilst also investigating the

rationale that led Liszt to heavily revise this setting.

Session 5: Popular Music(s) 2

Performing Michael Jackson to Make the World a Better Place: The Ardent Dedication of

Michael Jackson Pilgrims and the Divine Mission of the Major Love Prayer

Fardo Ine Eringa (University of Groningen)

In the aftermath of Michael Jackson’s passing ‘Michaeling’ originated, a pilgrimage in honour of

Jackson. Another post-mortem initiative that arose was the Major Love Prayer (MLP), a monthly

prayer on the 25th. Through the rituals of ‘Michaeling’ and the MLP MJ-fans internalize, continue

and spread MJ’s humanitarian and artistic legacy to ‘Heal the World’. MJ is appropriated as a

guide for (moral) conduct and is used to facilitate an intimate experience of the divine. In my

proposed paper I will explore the ardent dedication of Jackson’s followers via the following

question: ‘How do the rituals of ‘Michaeling’ and the MLP function as sensational forms which

enable and reinforce an experience of the sacred in everyday life and contribute to the reflexive

creation and maintenance of an ethical self?’

I will answer this question through an analysis of the lived pilgrimage experiences of 11 MJ-

pilgrims. I augment these findings with an examination of the MLP, to explore why and how MLP-

participants consciously choose to listen to certain MJ songs. Working from the perspectives of

these fans can enhance our knowledge of how contemporary people consume popular cultural

resources – particularly the medium of music – for meaning-making purposes in the context of

their everyday lives.

As a religious scholar, combining the academic fields of Religious Studies and Popular Culture, I

very much welcome input from the fields of ethnomusicology and musicology. In particular, I

would like to exchange thoughts on investigating the act of purposeful listening in music, and its

role in (group) identity-formation and maintenance.

Nick Cave's Dark Romanticism: An Analysis of Gothic Style and Freudian Themes

Emma Stapleton (Goldsmith’s College, University of London)

This work considers the music of Nick Cave with regards to Gothic and Freudian themes. Cave

is often referred to as goth because of his work with the Birthday Party in the 1980s. However, I

believe that there needs to be more consideration given to his application of Gothic themes later

in his career.

At first, this work considers Cave’s time as the frontman of goth band The Birthday Party, and

the way in which he utilised the Gothic in the 1980s. Subsequently, Cave’s employment of the

Gothic in two of his albums with the Bad Seeds from the 1990s is examined, namely Let Love In

and Murder Ballads.

Three songs from these later albums are investigated in depth using a different element of

Freudian and Gothic expression for each. Dark Romanticism- a term coined by G. R. Thompson

to describe literature in which the Romantic and the Gothic intertwine- is utilised to analyse

‘Loverman,’ Freud’s concept of the uncanny is applied to ‘Red Right Hand,’ and Bahktin’s

carnivalesque is employed in an interpretation of ‘O’Malley’s Bar.’

In this work, the evolution of the Gothic in Cave’s work is traced, from the blatant Gothic

references in the work of The Birthday Party, to Cave’s later use of literary Gothic themes in the

Bad Seeds’ albums from the 1990s.

Noisy Island?: Irish Popular Music in the Digital Age and the Demystification of Noise

Michael Lydon (National University of Ireland, Galway)

This paper will examine Irish popular music in the post-1992 era of digital reception and

production, questioning an emerging dissatisfaction with digital music and the use of audio and

environmental noise by Irish recording artists, including Cathy Davey, David Kitt and Lisa

Hannigan.

The work will initially look to place Irish popular music within an existing and growing global

narrative of dissatisfaction with digital music, drawing upon existing academic works by Paul

Hegarty and Damon Krukowski’s on the history and use of noise in popular music, and Dominik

Bartmanski and Ian Woodward’s work on the re-emergence of the vinyl record as the ‘king

format’ in the digital age. In addition, this paper looks to position these works alongside

academic work from the field of Sound Studies, looking at Jonathan Sterne’s theory on the

demystification of noise within the digital era, Laura U. Marks’ theory on noise in enfolding-

unfolding aesthetics, and Salomé Voegelin’s theory on sonic possible worlds.

Gerry Smyth’s well-known assertion that the Island of Ireland is ‘full of noises, and it behoves

the Irish critical community to begin listening to them, and not only to the noises that are sweet,

but also the ones we are routinely encouraged to believe are not’ underlines must of this

proposed paper, as it seeks to question dissatisfaction with digital media and its implication on

Irish popular music and its demystification of noise.

From Revolution to Evolution: Havana's New Music Scene

Snezhina Gulubova (Royal Holloway University of London)

Cuba’s rich musical legacy has been one of the island’s most important national and international

contributions for over 100 years. Its study has been divided into three distinct periods: pre-1959

Revolution, post-1959, and the Special Period (following the collapse of the Soviet Union, 1990).

Following the country’s détente with the US and the introduction of private ownership over the

past few years, Cuba is at the dawn of a new period of social and economic transformation, and of

a new phase in its musical history. From Revolution to Evolution investigates the social and

economic restructuring of Havana’s popular music scenes, profession, performance spaces, and

audiences, as a result of the creation of private music venues in the capital since 2012, a striking

departure from the country’s post-1959 model of state ownership. These new private clubs in

reflect the new modus operandi of Cuban society, one based on economic wealth rather than racial

or regional distinctions. Hence, within its new private music venues, Havana exists both in

socialism and post-socialism (sociocapitalism), distorting the city’s temporality. Furthermore, this

shift from ethnicity to economics is supplemented by Havana’s burgeoning status as an

international musical hub, re-drawing its social and economic geographies and distorting the

capital’s old spacial stratification. This new focus on wealth, considered both a form of protest and

an expression of the new Cuban society, has been most apparently expressed by reggaetón music

and musicians, especially in the high prices which they charge for their concerts.

Session 6: Reception, Representation and Narrative

Country at the Fringes

John Millar (University College Dublin)

As country music has become a mainstream, established genre across the country, it has come to

be associated with a particular form of the music in the public eye. Through media depictions on

television and radio, the term ‘country’ is often used interchangeably and often derisively phrase

‘country and Irish’. Despite this portrayal of a somewhat homogenous genre category, there are

multiple instances of localised and, to some degree, underground musical practices. This paper

will look at some of these practices, at some of the music-making which operates as a form of

resistance to the perceived dominant musical tastes and practices of particular locations. By

looking at the musical practices of the northwest and south of the country - particularly those of

counties Mayo, Sligo, and Waterford - this paper will show how musicians work both within and

against the multiple identities and social markers that are associated with both ‘country’ as a genre,

and ‘country’ as a geographic, socio-cultural, and political indicator. From bluegrass and old-time

string band music practiced in long-running sessions of the northwest to the Dunmore East

Bluegrass Festival, now in its third decade, these are musical traditions that, though visible, operate

on the fringes.

‘The Freer, Wilder, and Unpoliciter the Folk, the More Lyrical its Songs have to be!’ –

Herder’s Romanticising of the Celtic European Fringe: A Recurring Narrative of German-

Irish Musical Affinities?

Felix Morgenstern (Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick)

Published in 1773, German philosopher and theologian Johann Gottfried Herder’s seminal essay

on Ossian, James Macpherson’s Celtic myth hero, grounded much of his later theorising on folk

song and its liaison with language and the nation. Moreover, this important reference point for the

period of European Romanticism in the 19th century unveils a historically-rooted Germanic

fascination with the culture of the Celtic European fringe, Ireland and Scotland respectively, which

has resurfaced in later historical periods and appears to have underpinned the avid German

reception and performance of Ireland’s vernacular music from the 1970s onwards.

Drawing on existing scholarship (Haefs 1983; Steinbiß 1984; Frey and Siniveer 1987) and the

author’s ethnographic research among members of the 1970s German folk music revival

movement, this paper explores the discursive echoes, nuances, and distortions emerging out of

Herder’s Correspondence about Ossian and the Songs of the Ancient Peoples (1973) and uncovers,

how a romantic German draw to this Celtic Other manifests in musical form.

Ultimately, what connotes the “wildness”, “freedom” and “lyrical quality” that Herder attributes

to Irish music and culture reaches beyond his longing for the remnants of an ancient “Celtic

Twilight” (Stokes and Bohlman 2003: 15). More critically, this romantic attraction has been

interpreted in different shades by scholars, practitioners, and those who market Irish music to

German audiences. Peeling away the various layers of meaning attached to the music of the Celtic

European fringe moves us closer to understanding routes that Irish musical practices have taken in

the German context.

Quantifying Success: Seán Ó Riada, Ceoltóirí Cualann and the Challenge of Reception

History

Malachy Egan (National University of Ireland, Galway)

Students of history, and many other disciplines, are often accustomed to building a solid base of

primary material around research projects. Our ability to find, analyse, contextualise and use

such primary material can play a crucial role in reaching a concise and valid conclusion.

However, within historical and cultural musicology, a variety of challenges can emerge which

inhibit our ability to reach such long-term goals. Music is one such example of an area in which

conventional historical approaches may need to be expanded upon when studying a particular

artist or group. This paper will use the example of Seán Ó Riada and Ceoltóirí Cualann to

highlight many of the challenges faced when dealing with reception history and the solutions

developed to date. Terms such as “innovative”, “radical” and “dramatic” are used to describe the

music of Ceoltóirí Cualann within many secondary sources, but the extent to which such views

can be validated within primary material, and thus used to support findings, proved to be an early

obstacle.

In this presentation, I will draw upon various pieces of primary material I have gathered to date,

such as oral interviews, newspaper articles, radio recordings, audience surveys and observations

from members of Ceoltóirí Cualann and Seán Ó Riada himself. I will also focus on other

examples of musical ensembles outside of Ireland and highlight how similar reactions to these

groups can be utilised in studying a group such as Ceoltóirí Cualann and other Irish groups and

artists.

The Irish Constabulary Band: A Musical Authority in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (1861-

1872)

Maria Byrne (Maynooth University)

This paper examines the interplay of authority and music in the context of the Irish Constabulary

band. Established in 1861, this band held a prominent position in the musical life of nineteenth-

century Ireland, while also being a significant musical marker of police authority.

Twenty-five years after its foundation, the Irish Constabulary requested the government to

establish a band conforming to the spirit of social progress. It mirrored British regimental bands

in instrumentation and repertoire, raising the profile of the institution it represented. Performing

for official constabulary functions and civilian entertainments, this band intersected with a

predominantly middle-class audience.

This paper documents the early years of the Irish Constabulary band during the eleven-year

tenure of its founding bandmaster, Harry Hardy. Delivering a visual and sonic image of

institutional power, the Irish Constabulary band nonetheless succeeded in endearing itself to the

public, carving its own niche as Ireland’s national band under the charismatic Mr Hardy.

This paper considers how institutions and societies seek to mould music to promote their own

agendas. It explores the authority of an individual bandmaster to wow an audience and the power

of music to elicit an emotional response conducive to the social context within which it is

performed.

Session 7 (Bewerunge Room) English Language Vocal Music

‘Suit your Words to your Music Well’: A Schematic Approach to English Baroque Word-

Setting

Cathal Twomey (Maynooth University)

In the 1990s, Katherine Rohrer noted the prevalence of dance forms in Purcell’s vocal music,

arguing that the dance chosen depended on the poetic metre of the lyrics. Rohrer also observed

that Purcell and his contemporaries employed local rhythmic effects for certain types of poetic

line, but she described them as transcriptions of verbal stress into music, rather than theorising a

set of stereotyped musical rhythms suited to specific types of poetry. In short, Rohrer offered a

theory of large-scale English Baroque musico-poetics, but saw smaller-scale word-setting

patterns as text-derived rather than musically systematic.

This paper expands upon Rohrer’s analysis, filtered through Robert O. Gjerdingen’s ‘schematic’

theory of eighteenth-century composition. It presents both dance-form macro-structures and local

rhythmic figures as part of a wider set of musico-poetic schemata, stock devices applicable to

specific English poetic metres, line-types, and stanza-forms. It suggests these schemata as means

by which composers added musical variety to their settings whilst remaining faithful to poetic

form. It also notes hitherto unobserved patterns in English Baroque word-setting, suggesting that

even expressive effects like word-repetition and phrase-structure could be pre-determined by

formal characteristics of the text. The paper places these schemata in a larger cultural and

historical context, noting similar schematic approaches to word-setting not only in Italian, but

also in German and French over at least four centuries, thereby suggesting that poetic form had a

far greater role in vocal music than has hitherto been supposed.

The Vocal Music of Thomas Roseingrave

Owen Gilhooly (Royal Irish Academy of Music)

The Roseingrave Family, on arrival from England to Dublin in 1698, became both influential and

musically progressive, with Daniel holding the position of organist at St Patrick’s and

Christchurch Cathedrals.

His son Thomas is regarded as one of the most important Irish composer of the eighteenth

century. Having been awarded a scholarship from St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1709, he departed for

musical studies in Italy. Here he encountered Domenico Scarlatti, who was to have a lasting and

significant influence on his musical life. After his time in Italy and a subsequent return to

Dublin, he moved to London where he produced Scarlatti’s opera Narciso to which he added two

arias and two duets of his own. In 1725 he became organist at St George’s Hanover Square and

later returned to Ireland with failing mental health, where he died in 1766.

Although some research has been undertaken on the flute sonatas of Thomas Roseingrave, no

examination has yet taken place of his vocal music. This paper will examine and explore this

repertoire and place it in the historical and social context of eighteenth-century London and

Dublin, with special emphasis on his opera, Phaedra and Hippolitus.

'Little Eyases': The Adolescent Male Voice on the Shakespearean Stage

Sarah Ledwidge (Trinity College Dublin)

The famous ‘little eyases’ passage in Hamlet where Rosenkrantz deplores the ‘aerie of children’

who ‘cry out on the top of question and are most tyrannically clapped for’t’ merely scratches the

surface of the deep rivalry that ran between London’s choirboy and adult theatre companies

during the second half of the sixteenth century. The traditional view, however, that the indoor

companies of St Paul’s and the Chapel Royal performed complex polyphonic art songs while the

open air adult companies such as Shakespeare’s were limited to unaccompanied popular ballads,

has lately been challenged, particularly by Linda Phyllis Austern.

While is true that choirboy plays contain their fair share of ballads, it cannot be denied that

Shakespeare called on the vocal talents of young boys at poignant dramatic moments: the

performance of Morley’s ‘It was a lover and his lass’ in As You Like It (V.iii), for instance, or

Lucius’ lute song in Julius Caesar (IV.ii) which heralds the appearance of Caesar’s ghost.

Humorous references to the cracking of boys’ voices, furthermore, are rife to the point of

becoming an Elizabethan dramatic trope. The present study explores the importance of pre-

pubescent and adolescent male singers on the Elizabethan stage, and asks whether the dissolution

of the choirboy companies impacted the musical content of the adult repertoire.

Session 8: 20th Century Music: Analytical Perspectives

A Diffusion of Regularity: Metric Ambiguity in André Caplet's Mélodie

Claire Wilson (Ulster University)

Exploring the dissemination of regularity in rhythmic motion, and the perception of where the

bar line actually lies in the mélodies of André Caplet is a task not just for the analyst, but also for

the performer. The way in which we analyse a piece of music and our perception of translating

the score to the listener bears great impact on how the work is perceived. The French mélodie is

particularly interesting in this respect, because the presence of a poetic text saturated by a highly

complex harmonic language already sets the scene for a story to unfold... and not always how we

might expect! The potential to tell this story and find meaning in different ways lies hidden

within the deeper metric layers of the music.

This paper seeks to address the concept of metric dissonance and consonance in selected mélodies

by André Caplet, and in doing so will offer some thoughts on the partnership of poetic

interpretation and metric irregularity in the mélodie. Inspired by the work of Harald Krebs,

analytical examples throughout the paper will demonstrate grouping methods that show the

processes in which the poetic text and piano accompaniment can be interpreted, and will be further

supported by illustrative recordings.

The paper will conclude with thoughts on analytically informed interpretations of Caplet’s mélodie

and will highlight the ways in which the performer’s understanding of metric dissonance informs

our perception of both the poetic text and the fundamental pulse within the music.

The Changing Status of Percussion in the Twentieth Century

Georgina Hughes (University College Dublin)

This paper will consider changing perceptions of percussion in orchestral and chamber music of

the twentieth century by examining attitudes towards the section in orchestration manuals.

Percussion is arguably the defining timbral identity of contemporary music; its growth and

expansion from the rear of the orchestra to centre-stage have been a relatively sudden (and largely

unanticipated) progression. Despite the fact that percussion instruments are amongst the oldest

known to man, their value above and beyond colouristic or exotic effect was not acknowledged

until well after Varese emancipated the section in Ionisation.

Commencing with an exploration of cautious advice (and at times derogatory commentary on the

limitations of percussion) issued to orchestrators and composers in the early part of the twentieth

century, this paper will trace the gradual growth of interest in the section.

From the 1960s onwards, a percussion renaissance was in full effect; this is manifested with the

advent of instrumentation manuals devoted solely to percussion. Such publications were of

fundamental importance in promoting greater understanding and more effective use of percussion

instruments.

Initially condemned at best as exotic and colouristic additions to the ensemble, and at worst as

barbaric and ‘unmusical’ instruments, percussion has become a powerful force in shaping the

sound and direction of contemporary music. This presentation will chronicle the metamorphosis

of percussion from occasional (and troublesome) orchestral member to its full realisation as a

chamber and solo entity – one capable of renewing and reinvigorating compositional and

performance practice.

Structural Development of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos No. 1, 2, 3

Varazdat Khachatryan (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)

Often referred to as the ‘last Romantic’, Sergey Rachmaninoff’s legacy provides an interesting

insight to the development of musical heritage of the twentieth century. Most of his works were

composed at the cross-juncture of important events in the history marked by several revolutions

and two world wars. Moreover, the overall musical tastes and structures were transforming from

romanticism to impressionism and modernism. In this context, Rachmaninoff was often referred

to as a ‘conservative’ composer. However, despite this type of simple categorisation, throughout

his musical life, Rachmaninoff developed a style that has become unique and revolutionary in its

own right.

Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos are perhaps the most representative musical works of his legacy

and provide the researchers with an ample ground to follow his life as a composer and pianist in

its entirety. His early compositions, including the first piano concerto, carry a heavy influence of

Piotr Tchaikovsky whom he admired and considered his inspiration. With time, Rachmaninoff

developed his own interpretation and style of presenting contemporary musical ideas, which,

however, were not conceived as ‘progressive’ at the time. To shed light on the transformation of

Rachmaninoff’s compositions, this paper examines and compares his three piano concertos. It

focuses on the structural development of these monumental works to illustrate the growing

complexity of Rachmaninoff’s writing style and approach.

Session 9 (New Music Room) Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Irish Music

Vox Virginis: Marian Imagery of the Crucifixion in the Vocal Music of Roman Catholic,

Greek Orthodox, and Irish Sean-Nós Traditions

Rosemary Heredos (Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick)

The iconic image of Mary at the Cross of Christ appears across three different Christian musical

traditions of the late Middle Ages, including Roman Catholic (Gregorian) chant, Byzantine

chant, and Irish-Catholic sean-nós ritual song. These three musical practices each include a very

similar prayer which utilises this image: the Stabat Mater dolorosa (‘The Sorrowful Mother was

Standing’) of the Western Church, the Stavrotheotokion (hymns to Mary at the Cross) of the

Eastern Orthodox church, and the Keening songs of traditional Irish music. This topos is

unusual in its appearance across these three such different cultures across time and space,

although the manner in which this the theme of Mary’s sorrow is explored differs from tradition

to tradition. As a case study, one vocal piece has been analysed from each tradition, including

the fourteenth-century prose sequence Stabat iuxta Christi crucem, ‘She stood by the cross of

Christ’ (Burgos, Monasterio de Las Huelgas, no. 61, ff. 51r-52v), the fifteenth-century Greek

Orthodox lament for Good Friday, ‘Παρισταμένη τῷ Σταυρῷ, Paristaméni to Stavró, ‘Standing

by the Cross’ (Duke University, Kenneth Willis Clark, 45, f. 44r) and the Irish sean-nós song for

Good Friday, Caoineadh Mhuire, ‘Mary’s Keen’ (based on the notation and singing of Nóirín Ní

Riain). The method of depicting sorrow through vocal song is examined via the form, structure,

and palaeography of the music and text of each piece.

‘Will sure the Pretend’r and Popery bring in’: Italian Music, Anti-Catholicism, and the

Church in Eighteenth-Century Ireland

Eleanor Jones McAuley (Trinity College, Dublin)

While Italian music enjoyed great popularity in Ireland during the eighteenth century, it was

also the target of frequent criticism. As well as being accused of shallowness, frivolity and

the promotion of effeminate and "unmanly" behaviour, it was even believed to encourage the

spread of Catholicism. Anti-Catholic sentiment was widespread in the British Isles during

this period, fed by the religious tensions of the Civil War and Jacobite rebellions, and this

sentiment was liberally expressed throughout the burgeoning public sphere. Within the

Established Church, where the commemoration of events like the Gunpowder Plot served as

annual reminders of Catholic treachery, explicit anti-Catholicism was a fundamental part of

the community's collective identity, and Italian music, accordingly, was viewed with

suspicion.

This paper explores the extent of anti-Italian feeling in the churches of eighteenth-century

Dublin, a city where Italian music enjoyed great popularity among the Protestant upper

classes, and where those same upper classes believed themselves to be under constant threat

of a Catholic Jacobite uprising. It examines the anti-Italian sentiments expressed by church

authorities, from humble parish clerks to the Dean of St Patrick's himself, and how the church

music of the period was influenced by these views. It also investigates the ways in which

anti-Italian and anti-Catholic rhetoric functioned across confessional boundaries as an

expression of loyalism in an era of heightened socio-political and religious tension.

'Jigg to the Irish Cry’ - Exploring Thumoth’s Irish Airs (1746-1748)

Eamonn Galldubh (Dundalk Institute of Technology)

This paper will explore the repertoire found in the collections of Burke Thumoth in ’12 Irish and

12 Scottish Airs with Variations’ (1748) as well as ’12 English and 12 Irish Airs with Variations’

(1746). These collections were set for the German flute, violin or harpsichord and featured a basso

continuo part. Pieces still familiar today such as ‘Bumper Squire Jones’ and ‘Tabhair dom do

Lámh’ are included as well as many less familiar tunes. Extensive and elaborate variations are

included for some of the pieces, with the setting of ‘Eibhlín a Rúin' being a notable example.

In the early 18th century the uilleann pipes were developed from the existing pastoral pipes. The

term ‘uilleann pipes’ dates only from the 20th century and the original name for the instrument

was the ‘union pipes’. The first people to acquire these instruments were people of financial means

and early tutors for the instrument were aimed at a musically literate audience. At this stage the

uilleann pipes would have been used to play the popular music of the time rather than exclusively

used for folk music. Adaptions of settings from Thumoth’s collection found their way into ‘O

Farrell’s Pocket Companion for the Irish or Union Pipes’ (1806).

The performance aspect of this presentation will realise settings from Thumoth’s collection on

uilleann pipes and flute. Particular emphasis will be given to the settings with elaborate variations

and to unfamiliar repertoire.

Session 10 Music and Gender

A Woman's Heart: Challenging Gender Roles in Irish Traditional Music, and the

Diversification of the (Masculine) Button Accordion

Joanne Cusack (Maynooth University)

The overall aim of this paper is to highlight the influence of A Woman’s Heart on changing gender

equality within the Irish traditional music scene, with particular focus on the Irish button

accordion. Historically, women’s participation in Irish traditional music has been predominantly

restricted to certain roles, particularly as singers, dancers and listeners. During the 1950s revival,

female participation increased due to numerous factors such as the creation of lounges in pubs and

the establishment of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. However, many traditional instruments such as

the button accordion retained strong gender associations.

Despite the increase in participation, many female instrumentalists did not take part in the

commercial Irish music scene due to conflicts with expected domestic responsibilities, and related

embedded gender inequalities. Female participation continued to increase through the 1990s,

possibly reflecting changing attitudes towards women's rights and gender equality (signposted by

Mary Robinson's election in 1990 and the 1992 abortion referendum). In this paper, I argue that

female musicians Mary Black, Eleanor McEvoy, Mary Coughlan, Dolores Keane, Maura

O’Connell, and female button accordionist, Sharon Shannon exemplified the changing socially

constructed gender values in Irish society by achieving substantial commercial success with the

release of their 1992 album, A Woman’s Heart. The success of the album raises interesting

questions about the changing gender roles within Irish traditional music, the diversification of the

Irish button accordion, and indeed society in general.

The Role of Women in Irish Music Institutions: Dublin 1879 – 1924

Kirstie Alison Muldoon (Maynooth University)

Following the War of Independence, two sisters: - May Cosgrave and Joan Burke, became the

musical directors of the Leinster School of Music in 1921. Under the official directorship of

Cosgrave and Burke the school coined the emblem ‘Gan Ceol, Gan Tír’ (without music, without

country) in 1922, echoing the words of the fallen hero Padraig Pearse ‘Tír Gan Teanga, Tír Gan

Anam’ (a country without a language, a country without a name). This paper will shed light on the

core values of Irishness that was asserted within the Leinster School of Music in 1922.

Under the directorship of the sisters, the Leinster School of Music aimed to become a music

institution independent of British influence and to promote the traditional past of the country of

Ireland. The sisters propelled the school forward to play an imperative role in musical life in Dublin

at the dawn of the twentieth century. In a city battered by previous years of war, Cosgrave and

Burke aimed to promote music education and teacher training, and to instil national pride in the

society of Dublin.

Cosgrave and Burke promoted an Irish music institution that supported and built on the

pioneering influence of Dr Annie Wilson Patterson and her promotion of the Feis Ceoil. The

importance and extent of their work in Irish history remained hidden among the rubble and

neglected for some time. This paper aims to promote their role within the Leinster School of

Music in Dublin during the tumultuous years of the twentieth century.

The Women of Doom: An Ethnographic Study of Women’s Experience in Doom Metal

Francesca Stevens (University of Groningen)

The female fan, musician, and industry professional are on the rise in heavy metal culture. It has

been noted that women fans make up a third of the global heavy metal fan base and there is

reason to believe that this number is gradually increasing. However, in both scholarly and

journalistic literature, heavy metal is still generally understood as a masculinist and misogynist

genre. But what this fails to acknowledge is the strong and ever-growing participation of women

in the culture. This paper aims to highlight and validate the valuable experience of women in

metal culture, drawing from an ethnographic case study of ‘The Women of Doom’, an informal

social group of women doom fans in Birmingham, UK. Using ethnographic research, literature

from fans and cultural studies and heavily relying upon feminist theory, this paper demonstrates

the empowering experience of being a woman in doom metal, including an intersectional

analysis of race, gender and sexuality in relation to fan-based musical passion. The fundamental

goal of this paper is not to merely write a ‘herstory’ of metal, but to explore the process of ‘re-

scription’: writing women back into metal, where they have been all along.

On Female Music, or ‘How ‘Feminist’ Really Works in Feminist Musicology’

Martina Bratic (University of Graz, Austria)

My doctoral dissertation project addresses the question of feminist musicology, namely, the issue

of female music. It will discuss how this concept came to be, what its core and background ideas

are, and will further question the possibility of its existence.

Feminist musicology emerged in the 1980s, together with some new approaches employed in the

discipline of musicology. It has accumulated a large body of work, creating different research

trajectories and questioning the role of music, creativity, musical formal analysis, and authorial

position in regard to gender. However, as with the écriture féminine in (feminist) literary studies,

the core question of female aesthetics in music has rarely been addressed, as it presents one of the

most complex if not perplexing perspectives of feminist musicology. If music operates and

communicates through an eminently musical language, how can gender be presented on a level

where one could speak of a female aesthetics in music?

In discussing this question, my paper will examine how the concept of female music is conveyed

in the perspective of feminist musicology and how it came about; it will consider what it

presupposes, what it includes and excludes, what its political implications are and, finally –

whether the idea of female music is tenable in contemporary musicology.

Session 11 Theory in Context

Dieter Schnebel’s Experimental Music and its Pedagogical Approach

Nadine Scharfetter (University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz)

Influenced by performances of John Cage’s works in Europe in the 1950s, the German composer

Dieter Schnebel started to compose experimental music himself. His interest in experimental music

was awoken by the fact that it offered opportunities that deliberately subverted the traditional

understanding of composing and performing a musical work. In experimental works, composers

disregarded conventional compositional theories, included new sound materials and used

instruments in new non-traditional ways. Other composers have also influenced Schnebel’s

compositions. His education in various fields such as theology, philosophy and musicology, as

well as his teaching profession also significantly influenced Schnebel’s work as a composer.

In this paper, I focus on the pedagogical aspect in Dieter Schnebel’s experimental music. By

analysing some of Schnebel’s works with a pedagogical approach – for example ‘Maulwerke für

Artikulationsorgane und Reproduktionsgeräte’ or ‘Schulmusik’ – I deal with the following

questions: How does Schnebel’s pedagogical approach manifest itself in these works? For whom

did he compose these works: professional musicians, amateur musicians, or both? Are these

musical works even supposed to be performed on stage, or are they intended to serve an

educational purpose only? For what purpose did Schnebel compose these works? Where does

Schnebel’s interest to apply a pedagogical approach in his musical works stem from? However,

analysing the musical works is not enough to answer all of these questions. For a better

understanding of his musical works, one must consider Schnebel’s biography as well.

The Conceptualisation of Musical Experience in Luigi Russolo’s The Art of Noises

Laura Vattano (University of Edinburgh)

Luigi Russolo, a renowned Italian Futurist painter, is likewise considered a pioneer in the

evolution of twentieth-century music. In 1913, Russolo signed a Futurist manifesto entitled The

Art of Noises and in 1916, he published a book carrying the same title that summed up his

musical thoughts. During that period, he invented more than twenty musical instruments that he

named intonarumori (noise-tuners) and composed three orchestra pieces specifically thought for

these instruments.

Nonetheless, soon after 1913, Russolo experienced a conflict between his musical practice and

theory when he realized that his intonarumori and other compositions were incapable of fully

conveying his theory of noises. Russolo then pursued a radical reconsideration of the very early

premises of his research. What if his art could have found expression in a completely

unprecedented dimension? What if his Futurist music got rid of sound itself?

By considering several empiric elements such as the language that Russolo used in The Art of

Noises, the nature and function of his instruments and, ultimately, the only available fragment of

a score for intonarumori published in 1914 in the Italian Journal Lacerba, I will demonstrate that

Russolo's contribution to the twentieth-century music was not merely limited to his inventions or

to the scores he wrote. Rather, it comprised a radical re-conceptualization of music that

paralleled similar instances brought forward by Avant-gardes in other artistic fields, e.g. the shift

from figurative to abstract painting or the loss of metrical rules in poetry.

Hanslick, Kant and Wittgenstein: Re-Evaluating Formalism

Nicholas Cooper (University College Dublin)

Musical formalism is the idea that instrumental music on its own does not represent or arouse

emotions or external facets in the world. Rather, the aesthetic force of the work is a product of the

sonic elements of the piece, nothing more, and nothing less. In its original statement by Eduard

Hanslick, musical formalism relied heavily on the work of Immanuel Kant in his Critique of the

Power of Judgement, the founding text of formalism in art. This underpinning is central to

Hanslick’s project, and it has since been justifiably subjected to serious objections by modern

musicology; the blinkered ontological and political assumptions of old music criticism and

analysis have been undercut repeatedly. It is possible, however, to follow the thought of another

thinker in assembling an argument in favour of musical formalism, Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Wittgenstein drew on certain Kantian distinctions concerning necessity and contingency

throughout his writings in articulating an account of how meaning emerges in collective social

practice. I contend that it is possible to suggest a revised version of Hanslick’s formalist project

that takes account of our living musical practices, the challenges of modern musicology, and the

fraught landscape of the philosophy of meaning.

Session 12: Political and Theoretical Discourses in Music

Respect, Esteem, and Distinction: The Recognitive Foundations of Musical Disagreement

Michael Whitten (Queen’s University, Belfast)

Disagreement about music is nothing new. We can all recall a time when we have been engaged

in a dispute about something musically related (our favourite ABBA song perhaps?)

Disagreement can range from abstract aesthetic considerations to more concrete social ones, i.e.,

the negative appraisal of a musically-inspired fashion trend. On first examination, such

disagreement may seem harmless; simply the clash of subjective viewpoints. On closer

inspection, however, disagreement about music signals to the mechanisms of societal conflict

more generally which is expressed in the struggle for recognition. Recognition involves the

desire to have our beliefs, identity, and selfhood recognised by others and for us to recognise this

same desire in others. Disagreement or conflict, therefore, is the result of recognition claims not

being met. This is because the desire for recognition often involves disputes over the normative

authority of recognition claims. By exploring the theories of recognition outlined by Charles

Taylor and Axel Honneth, coupled with Philip Pettit’s work on esteem, this paper will argue that

the desire to have our musical taste or judgment recognised as a matter of right or justice is

incorrect. This is because taste and judgement are evaluative tools and cannot be linked to

notions of equal respect or dignity. This idea will be explored in relation to the struggle for

epistemic authority between music researcher and music practitioner as well as the role social

distinction plays in the everyday practice of music.

A Psychological Theory of Narrative and Drama in Music

Alan Taylor (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama)

Theories of narrative in music, and challenges to the concept of musical narrativity, have centred

around the ability of music to represent things external to itself, or at least to be describable

verbally. Modern studies of the psychology and neurology of the perception of music show that

it is understood as a complex, and unsummarisable experience in the right hemisphere of the

brain. Verbal or representational interpretations of music are the result of the attempt by the left

hemisphere to grasp and define this complex experience. In the attempt to do so, the essence of

the experience slips away between the fingers.

As well, the study of the effect of mirror neurons shows that humans can experience one event as

like another kind of event, and therefore as analogues of one another. I propose from this that

music of certain types may be experienced as an analogue of a story. The listener senses that they

have experienced a story, but cannot truly define its nature. The fact that music, particularly of

the nineteenth century, has been often interpreted in story terms is evidence that the brain

perceives such music as story analogues.

Music might therefore be analysed as consisting of a narrative-analogue, or a drama-analogue, or

neither, with the drama-narrative distinction resting on the rate of information change in the

music as it is experienced.

‘The Times They Are A-Changin’: Politicians, Musicians, and the Political Award

Emma-Jayne Reekie (Institute of Popular Music Studies, University of Liverpool)

Politics is not popular; it is not ordinary nor easily relatable. There is often a gulf between

politicians and their electorate. Popular music, however, is the antithesis of this as it originates in

the ‘ordinary’, what is actually a dynamic mix of cultural, social and political values, and

manages to retain its sense of humble beginnings whilst being elevated to a revered status among

its audience. It is unsurprising that the political world, as it navigates huge technological

upheaval and its consequent social changes, has started to call upon and cultivate support from

popular musicians as the public, both in the UK and USA, increasingly disengage from orthodox

political practices.

While considerable attention has been given to how popular music has been harnessed in election

campaigns, minimal work has been conducted regarding the awards that politicians bestow upon

musicians such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom and an entire hierarchy of awards in the

UK from MBEs to knighthoods. This paper will discuss how the relationship between awards,

pop and politics reveals societal trends and the rise of the phenomenon of celebrity in politics. It

will examine the purpose of these awards and question the decision-making process behind

them; what prompted anti-establishment Bob Dylan to be given a Presidential Medal of Freedom

or Mick Jagger to be given a knighthood? This paper hopes to demonstrate the shifting position

of pop in society and further cement the wider implications of the relationship between popular

music and politics.

Opera and Coffee: Contemporaneous Perspectives on Madrid’s Café Concerts under

Fernando VII

Riccardo La Spina (Universidad de La Rioja)

Before the advent of performance societies, the immediate aftermath of the Bourbon restoration

discouraged Madrid’s public concerts. From 1814, Fernando VII’s absolutist regime imposed

strictures relegating musical life to tightly-controlled theatres or private salons (tertulias), while

denying performers petitions. Between 1820 and 1823, constitutional reforms took place,

facilitating Madrid’s first uninterrupted Italian opera seasons in decades. This brought temporary

shifts of venue to the café, setting a precedent for later societal concerts. Of these, the Café Cruz

de Malta series (1821-1823) received exclusive attention across Madrid’s rarefied cultural

periodicals spearheaded by José María Carnerero. Thanks to new press freedoms, the brief but

fruitful triennio constitucional parentheses afforded this wave of Rossini reception an

unprecedented flurry of review coverage. Though sporadic, this vital concert activity informed

musical taste and sophistication, enabling repertory and paradigm-shifts, as Rossini’s introduction

juxtaposed older titles with modern, making both ripe for journalistic dissection. These

entertainments – remarkable for their frequency, scheduling and concomitant occurrence with

theatrically staged operas coinciding with the Ópera Italiana’s establishment– predate a second

apogee of café concert life (1826-1833), identified here in several important groupings: Madrid

(1820-1826), and Cádiz (1825, 1829-1830). Previously poorly-documented and confused for

want of sources, this pivotal episode now transcends its purported lack of journalism, by engaging

musical criticism’s developing role. Emerging as precursors to the concerts, commentary on the

Triennium’s first café concert series that was previously unknown is examined in historical

context with its planning and execution.

Session 13: Performance and Composition as Research

Beyond the Standard Tuning of Bell Plates

Alex Petcu-Colan (Royal Irish Academy of Music)

Church bells have long been a source of inspiration for composers and many attempts have been

made to provide practical substitutes for them in the concert hall. These include suspended tubes

of metal known as tubular bells, rectangular metal sheets known as bell plates and others. Once

these instruments were in regular use, however, composers began to use them in ways that were

different from their original purpose and to exploit them for their own unique properties. Today,

these instruments are found in a wide variety of settings including the orchestra, small ensembles

and even sound and music therapy.

This paper investigates the acoustic properties of bell plates and expands on the standard tuning

of these instruments. As an established performer of new music, I am constantly in contact with

composers who are looking for new ways to manipulate existing sounds and instruments. This

research should be of great use to them by providing them with a much larger sound palette than

currently exists for these instruments.

The standard tuning of a bell plate produces a sound where the fundamental and 1st overtones

are one octave apart. This is achieved by setting the aspect ratio to be around 1.4. A simple

alteration of this ratio should change this interval and provide an instrument with a completely

different harmonic spectrum, which, to the best of my knowledge, is something new and has not

been explored before. The paper will examine some of these possible variations in terms of tone

clarity, timbre and overtone makeup.

Cantillation in The Long Nights Dawn

Alan Barclay (Queen’s University, Belfast)

At its core, my paper will be an exegesis to complement my practical work, or more precisely

my compositional practice of extended modality, through methods which combine computer-

based techniques using OpenMusic (computer software from Institut de Recherche et

Coordination Acoustique/Musique). Often when considering composition from an academic

perspective, aims and objectives, research questions and methodologies are thought of as a linear

process. However, Art and music, in particular, has always demonstrated its capacity to function

on multiple levels. In the past twenty years, we have seen, two artistic practices grow in

dominance. The first is the use of computer-based techniques, and secondly the use of modality

in contemporary music. As a result, we have seen composers such as Tristan Murail, Brian

Ferneyhough, and Kaija Saariaho grow in number. The issue of modality has been the subject of

much discussion, such as books like The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine (1995), Beyond

Functional Harmony by Wayne Naus (1998), and Modalogy: Scales, Modes and Chords by Jeff

Brent and Schell Barkley (2011).

My paper will examine the use of modal cantillations and computer-based techniques in my

recent work, ‘The Long Nights Dawn for Flute’, with glissando headjoint and Bass Flute (for one

performer), My research looks at the embrace of multiple goals, as a dialectic of contrary

interests in a single work, and how this dialectic could be used to outline the research

underpinning my creative practice in a practitioner-led instance of practice as research.

Western Choral Arrangements for Javanese Gamelan

Clair Butler (University College Cork)

This paper discusses the recital which was composed, arranged and performed as my major study

project in May 2017. The performance entitled ‘Western Choral Arrangements for Javanese

Gamelan’ involved a twenty-minute performance of two well-known western liturgical choral

pieces blended with the music of the Javanese gamelan. The paper firstly provides some context

for the performance, by outlining a brief history of the relationship between the Javanese Gamelan

and western society. Once the historical context has been established, the paper investigates the

nature of the project itself.

The paper open with a discussion on the structure of the Gamelan compositions. Brief examples

of cipher notation are provided in order to present a clear image of the pieces.

The second half of the paper discusses the editing of the western scores and their marriage to the

Gamelan compositions. Examples from both original scores and newly revised scores are

provided throughout the paper and all full scores are available as an appendix at the end of the

essay. The physical performance carried out on the 14th May 2017 is later discussed. The paper

comes to a conclusion analysing the successful aspects of the arrangement and performance, but

also highlighting areas for further improvement.

Session 14: Jazz

‘I’ll Be Seeing You’: Rhythmic Exploration and Harmonic Freedom in the Vocabulary of

Aaron Pa

Scott Flanigan (Ulster University)

Aaron Parks has slipped under the net of contemporary jazz research today. Undaunted by the

preconceived expectations his genre, Parks’ style embodies a sense of harmonic freedom and

rhythmic exploration that is fresh in its approach.

This paper offers an insight into the ways in which Parks’ treatment of I’ll Be Seeing You (2009)

demonstrates a deep understanding of the formal structure, through unrestricted use of unexpected

harmonic superimposition, irregular rhythmic groupings; and during solos through a heightened

use of melodic referencing.

I’ll Be Seeing You is a well-known jazz standard, and since 1938 has been interpreted in many

ways. To support insight into the individual nature of Parks’ approach to jazz pianism, his

interpretation of this standard will be considered in light of the well-known 1999 rendering by

famed fellow American pianist, Brad Mehldau. By doing so, this paper will offer reflections on

Parks’ adventurous approach to compositional structure, as well considering his novel

approaches to jazz improvisation. Supported by musical examples and demonstrations, the paper

will conclude with thoughts on the eclectic nature of the jazz pianist in current musicological

research.

Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, and the Octatonic Scale

Darach O Laoire (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)

Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian were the first two guitarists to move the instrument

beyond its place in the rhythm section and into the solo realm in the Jazz genre. In doing so, a

new musical vocabulary emerged encompassing a growing virtuosity and harmonic awareness.

Key to this was developing techniques in single note playing which involved an increased level

of chromaticism. Each musician had a different approach towards this end. Charlie Christian

used the blues scale and extended chord tones, whilst Django Reinhardt had a virtuosic

command of arpeggio playing, leaning heavily on the octatonic scale. This paper involves the

investigation into how the two guitarists dealt with similar musical material in single note

playing in different ways, through the transcription and analysis of their audio material. This

paper also aims to demonstrate that the work of Christian and Reinhardt represents the

foundation of the Jazz guitar as a solo instrument, upon which every Jazz guitarist who has

followed has drawn upon.

A Demonstration of George Van Eps’ Influence on Solo Jazz Guitar Performance Practice

through the Comparative Analysis of a Jazz Standard

Jimmy Brennan (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)

The purpose of this research is to assess critically the contribution of George Van Eps to the

development of jazz guitar harmony, placing particular emphasis on his use of voice-leading and

its application in the context of solo instrumental performance.

This study appraises Van Eps’s role in the development of jazz guitar as a solo instrument and

assesses his influence on contemporary guitar styles. In doing so, it draws particular attention to

the influence of classical fingerstyle technique on his guitar style and assesses its influence and

application in contemporary practice.

While the larger body of this study assesses the content of his publications, which focus heavily

on voice-leading studies for guitar, today’s presentation assesses his influence on his

contemporaries in the context of solo jazz guitar arranging and performance practice.

Unfinished Phrases and Double Meaning in Ahmad Jamal's ‘At the Pershing: But Not For

Me’

Kevin Higgins (Independent Scholar)

This paper explores tensions between competing constructions of Ahmad Jamal’s career through

musicological analysis of ‘gestures of brokenness’ in his influential 1958 jazz release ‘At The

Pershing: But Not For Me’. On the album, Jamal’s playing differs markedly from that of

contemporaneous pianists and, although lauded by leading jazz musicians, was dismissed by

critics of the time as ‘innocuous’ ‘cocktail music’. I contend that understanding Jamal’s musical

decisions as ‘gestures of brokenness’ may account for this divergence of opinion. By

‘brokenness’, I refer to intentional discontinuity or incorrectness, ‘radically unfinished forms’ or

‘wilfully damaged signs’, (Paul Gilroy, 1993), in the musics of the Black Atlantic, which evoke

the ‘unsayability’ of racial terror and critique rational modernity, whilst offering an opportunity

for antiphony. The term ‘gestures’ is used as I am investigating phenomena at the scale of the

musical phrase.

This paper interprets Jamal’s gestures of brokenness as reconfigurations of the jazz solo break.

His versions replaced virtuosity with sparseness and undercutting of emotion. I argue this may

have prevented critical categorisation of Jamal within convenient tropes like entertainer,

romanticist or heroic soloist. The perspective on Black Cool offered by hip hop drummer and

commentator Questlove (2014) is invoked to argue that Jamal's gestures involved

‘masquerading’ and ‘intensity held in check’. Having situated Jamal's gestures of brokenness in

black cultural traditions, I argue that the classically-trained Jamal created a work whose double

consciousness simultaneously spoke the language of pop and hip jazz, frustrating critical

narratives based on art-commerce and white-black binaries.

Session 15: Music, Technology and the Digital Age

Saxify: Detecting Fraudulent Music Recordings

Eamon O’Doherty (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)

Several years ago, researchers at the UK CHARM Centre (Nicholas Cook and Craig Sapp)

developed Scapeplots as a way to compare music recordings. Using Pearson Correlations, and a

corpus of Chopin Mazurka recordings, they demonstrated that supposed recordings by English

pianist Joyce Hatto were in fact fraudulent manipulations of earlier recordings by Eugen Indjic.

My PhD research has developed an automated software model to determine how dissimilar

recordings are from each other, and from a conceptual performance norm (an “average”

performance). The primary aim has been to evaluate changes in performing style over time,

focusing on a discography of 44 recordings of Schoenberg’s penultimate chamber work and the

Phantasy for Violin Op. 47. Important aspects of the research have been to build a model that can

(a) handle unlimited multivariate music data, (b) reduce the dimensionality and numericity, and

(c) be extended beyond tempo and dynamic data (e.g. rates of acceleration, rates of change of

dynamics, harmonic composition of pitch, vibrato frequency or vibrato width).

As part of my research programme, I validated the model on the publicly-available CHARM

data, and on relevant published papers by Cook and Sapp. I achieved identical conclusions as

they did in respect of Hatto, but coming from very different assumptions. The findings of my

research are important to current music performance science in offering techniques to compare

recorded performances even where manipulation has occurred. My paper will outline the model

and discuss how it may be used to find Hatto-like frauds.

The Music and Animation Path through The Legend of Zelda Saga

Gonzalo Parrilla Gallego (Complutense University of Madrid)

In 1986 Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda. It was the first famous videogame saga and one

of the most acclaimed videogame sagas ever created. It was released for the NES Console system

and sold over 6.5 million of copies, a record for the Nintendo Company in those years. Since

then, The Legend of Zelda has become one of the main titles for Nintendo and it has been a

required purchase by every single gaming-system developed by the Japanese entertainment

company.

The Legend of Zelda has given us enough musical material to carry on defending the inclusion of

video game industry studies in academic institutions, as well being deserving of the same

treatment as the cinematic or music industry, due to the exponential growth experienced by

entertainment and gaming industry.

Graphic animation and music compositions have gone together through different platforms since

1986 within The Legend of Zelda saga. We will see how animation has been updated in current

products from a pixel-quality graphic, and also how music has experienced an incredible change

within the saga’s development since 1986. The relationship between gameplay, graphic

animation and musical functions will be examined from an analytical and musicological point of

view.

You Can Call Me Hal (Music and Machine Learning)

Martin Clancy (Trinity College Dublin)

From Ada Lovelace, creator of the very first algorithm, to Google's Magenta mission statement

in June 2016 (‘To develop algorithms that learn how to generate art and music, potentially

creating compelling and artistic content on their own’), questions of the possibility, if not always

the probity of music generated without human agency have persisted and tantalized developers

for the past one hundred years.

My paper will present an array of powerful and creative contemporary actors who have recently

dedicated significant resources to achieving the goal of creating original music generated by

machine learning- music that is largely indistinguishable from that created by human agency.

This cross-section sampling will draw from transnational corporations, indie start-ups and the

Academy.

My paper will present a series of audio blind tests for the audience from different musical genres

to frame the nuance of the modern ethic and fiscal argument regarding music created by

Artificial Intelligence. This paper will also develop themes from a public lecture I delivered at

the Science Gallery Dublin as a keynote for its Festival of Curiosity season July 2017.

Session 16: Developments in Irish Art Music

Voice of the Poet, Voice of the People: Irony and Romanticizing in Moore’s Irish Melodies

Maxime Le Mée (Dublin City University)

Moore’s Irish Melodies have received relatively little scholarly attention from a musical point of

view, with Una Hunt’s recent book, Source and Style in Moore’s Irish Melodies, providing a

welcome addition to the area. The texts of Moore’s Melodies have been of considerably more

interest to scholars over the years, even though Moore intended that text and music would be

experienced and understood together. It is striking, then, that the accompaniments of John

Stevenson were much discussed by critics, while it seems that only the interpretation of the

poems has been worth exploring in the academic sphere. This paper considers how the music of

Moore’s Irish Melodies contributes to the Romanticizing of the texts it accompanies. The

question of the passage from ‘popular’ song culture to the “pianofortes of the rich and the

educated”, carries significant connotations concerning identity. The mere fact that Michael Balfe

was asked to redo the accompaniment, and refine the transition from ‘light music’ to ‘serious

music’ is significant regarding the importance of the music of the Irish Melodies. It is thus

possible to link the Irish Melodies to the concepts of Adorno in the ‘Fetish-Character in Music’.

Furthermore, a parallel with Richard Taruskin’s observations on the lieder and the

Volkstümlichkeit can draw the creation of an irony between the voice of the poet and the voice of

the people. The music contributes to the Romanticizing of Moore’s so-called nationalistic claims

amidst questions of identity that remain meaningful and relevant today.

Alfred Perceval Graves and his Contribution to Irish Song Literature

Áine Mulvey (Dublin City University)

Throughout the nineteenth century in Ireland, the realisation that the culture of a Gaelic

civilisation was rapidly disappearing as the Irish language fell into disuse, which prompted

feverish activity in collecting and preserving artefacts of an Irish identity. Building on the

folksong collections of Bunting and Petrie, antiquarian and scholarly research provoked debates

on a variety of issues including the place of folksong in national education; the accuracy and

authenticity of the transcriptions; the provenance of the songs and their original lyrics; and how

best to preserve and present the songs to a public who no longer spoke the language.

The anthologist, poet and songwriter Alfred Perceval Graves had a life-long interest in the Irish

language, folklore and music. He collaborated with many of the leading musicians and

revivalists of the day, including Charles Villiers Stanford, Michele Esposito, and Charles Wood,

working with them on folksong collections, original songs with Irish themes, and even an opera.

He was a founding member (and twice President) of the Irish Literary Society in London, and his

lectures on folksong given to the National Literary Society in Dublin (with Dr Annie Patterson)

would give rise to the founding of the Feis Ceoil in 1897. His circle of acquaintances included

luminaries such as W.B. Yeats, Douglas Hyde, Charlotte Milligan Fox, and George Bernard

Shaw.

This paper will examine Grave’s contribution to Irish song literature, through his collaborations

with composers and collectors, as well as his advocacy of Irish song through lectures, papers and

affiliations.

Rediscovering Muirgheis: The First Grand Opera in Irish

David Scott (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)

In October 2017, Opera theatre company revived Robert O’Dwyer’s 1909 Irish language opera

Eithne, declaring it to be the ‘Ireland’s first romantic opera sung in the Irish language.’ However,

in December 1903, Dublin’s Theatre Royal was the host of the first and only performance of

Thomas O’Brien Butler’s Muirgheis, an opera billed as the ‘first Grand Opera in the Irish

Language’.

Kerry born O’Brien Butler received tuition at the Royal College of Music, and became interested

in composing music aligned to the ideas of the Gaelic Revival. Muirgheis was commissioned by

An tOireachtas and a notice in An Claidheamh Soluis stated ‘the composer has come to the Gaelic

League with his work, and the Gaelic Leaguers of Dublin should support him.’ In the same year

as the premiere of Muirgheis, the Gaelic League published his art song collection Seven Original

Irish Melodies. O’Brien Butler’s career came to an abrupt end in 1915 when he died on the RMS

Lusitania and his music was soon forgotten. This paper will examine if O’Brien Butler was

successful in his attempt to align art music with Gaelic culture, and whether or not his opera would

be worth considering for modern day performance.

Session 17: Innovation and Tradition

Creativity with Tradition: A Case Study of Two Cellists and Innovation in Irish

Traditional Music

Kaylie Streit (University College Cork)

This paper focuses on the creative works of Kate Ellis and Ilse de Ziah, two cellists performing

music based on Irish traditional music idioms. Both cellists learned Irish traditional music

through immersion in the oral transmission process essential to acquiring the techniques, sounds,

formulas, and motifs essential to the sound of the music, but applied these to the cello in

different ways. Kate Ellis chose to take these motifs and create compositions in performance

(Lord 1964) through improvisation based on Irish traditional music idioms. Ilse de Ziah chose to

take the tunes and song airs and re-create arrangements to be played on the cello, both for her

own performance and in written form to be performed later by other cellists. This paper will

focus on how each of these cellists uses components of Irish traditional music and the oral

transmission process to create their works. It also discusses the potential for other cellists

working with traditional transmission processes to create new, innovative works within the style

of Irish traditional music and the potential for other artists to use this process to carry on

innovation in the living tradition that is Irish traditional music.

The Uilleann Pipes: Beyond Traditional Practice

Mark Redmond (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama)

Without doubt, the uilleann pipes are unique to Ireland; however, research has shown that the

music performed on them historically was not often solely regarded as traditional Irish music as

we recognise it today. During the eighteenth century, while in the early stages of development,

the union pipes (as they were then known) were influenced by European court instruments.

The evolution of the Irish pipes seems to have been tailored towards the performance of

European art music (as opposed to purely traditional music), by the inclusion of a fully chromatic

range exceeding two octaves as well as the incorporation of a system of additional pipes capable

of (limited) western harmony. These developments, by skilled professional instrument makers

occurred when the instrument was in vogue among the upper class. It gave rise to a limited

source of literature, mainly tutors and music collections; many of which (including unpublished

manuscripts) featured art music compositions alongside traditional melodies.

This paper explores links and relationships between the uilleann pipes and similar European art

music instruments. It will examine the evolution and advancement of the instrument, as

influenced by art music; the contributions of significant instrument makers and the impact of art

music on their developments; the role of renowned performers and their repertoire as well as the

part played by a number of prominent publishers in promoting both the instrument and the

music, with a special focus on the inclusion of art music.

Instrumental Change: The Introduction of String Instruments to Irish Music During the

Irish Folk Music Revival (1960s and 1970s)

Brendan Lamb (University of Tasmania)

In the history and progress of Irish folk/traditional music, a select group of instruments have

been cited as the core requirement for an Irish ‘sound’. The fiddle, uilleann pipes, whistle and

flute, have been cited by Irish musicologists such as Seán Ó Riada, Breandán Breathnach and

Tomás Ó Canainn as fundamental components of an Irish sound due to the melodic nature of the

music. Instruments outside of this select grouping were often rejected or dismissed. The

popularity of the Irish folk music revival of the mid-twentieth century, however, challenged this

perspective through the inclusion of stringed instruments from non-Irish backgrounds and has

left an identifiable legacy in Irish music performance. Musicians such as Seán Ó Riada, Barney

McKenna, Johnny Moynihan, Andy Irvine, Dónal Lunny, Paul Brady and Micheál Ó Domhnaill

all contributed to this inclusion of non-traditional instruments and adapted their performances to

suit the style of Irish traditional music.

This paper will briefly examine the use of instruments of the tenor banjo, bouzouki, mandolin,

acoustic guitar and harpsichord as well as the stylistic elements developed by the aforementioned

musicians to promote an Irish sound. It will also discuss the impact of these developments on

traditional Irish music and ensembles.

Keynote Address by Amanda Bayley (Professor of Music, Bath Spa University)

Creative and Interactive Processes in Cross-Cultural Collaborations

An ethnography of intercultural practice helps us understand the nature of musical creativity and

collaboration in terms of communication and dialogue. Using examples from a range of case

studies I will consider issues surrounding authority and authorship in rehearsal and performance,

examined from dialogue and musicking, and the relationship between the two. The notion of

authorship needs to accommodate the way creativity flows across cultural boundaries,

especially for oral traditions, or in cases where oral and notated traditions are

combined. Conventional boundaries between composers and performers are adapted, challenged

or re-defined. The subsequent dialogue that takes place between traditions is interpreted through

the inventive actions and ideas of musicians, prompting questions surrounding integration,

preservation and innovation.